The Tunisia chronicle, pt.4
The Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT - Tunisian General Labour Union), the sole union in Tunisia up to now, has for many years played an ambiguous role as part of the dictatorial state apparatus with multiple links to the ruling party while being at the same time the centre of combative, independent trade unionism. [Castellano]
Both poles have coexisted because they needed each other. The UGTT's bureaucratic leadership apparatus has needed, and now needs more than ever, this veneer of militancy and struggle that the militant sector gives the union in order to maintain its share of power within the state apparatus and to survive the dictatorship in circumstances such as those at present. For its part, the militant sector has found in the UGTT the infrastructure that is essential if it is to reach the workers and enjoy legal coverage, even though that coverage has often not prevented repression in such a context where there is a total lack of freedoms.
In 1946, after a process of union-building lasting two years from south to north, the UGTT, the first union in North Africa, with Farhat Hached (later killed by extremist French colonists) and Ahmed Tlili leading it. From its birth the UGTT was closely linked to the nationalist movement and marked by the subordination of the class struggle to the struggle for national independence, a condition which determined its dependence on the new national state apparatus.
During the Bourguiba dictatorship there were ongoing tensions between its submission to the single party and a certain autonomy that allowed it to put pressure on the power in the '60s and '70s. The general strikes of '78 and the bread revolt of 1984 amounted to the highest levels of confrontation and repression against the UGTT by the State, and many union activists suffered long years in prison.
Surprised by the uprisings in Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine, the leadership only permitted strikes at the local or regional level and demands for democratic reforms once the rebel movement had spread throughout the country and many local unions had become directly involved. A general strike in Tunis was not called until 14th January. And on 13th, Abdessalem Jerad, secretary general of the UGTT, was in talks with Ben Ali, looking for solutions to the situation. A week earlier, he had allowed students and unemployed workers who had locked themselves into the premises of the UGTT in Tunis to be violently evicted by the police, and many of them were tortured and imprisoned.
After Ben Ali had fled, the leadership agreed to participate in Mohamed Ghannouchi's provisional government of national unity with 3 ministers, before withdrawing their representatives under pressure from the people on the streets and the UGTT's more radical wing. While people were fighting Ghannouchi's government on the streets, the leadership of the UGTT called for a "government of national salvation", without clarifying what it was to be or how it was to be made up, in an attempt to please everyone.
All this has resulted in the UGTT playing an important political role in the popular revolt in Tunisia. Involved from the start of the uprising in Sidi Bouziz, its premises have been open, in most cases, for the purpose of organizing demonstrations - often being the starting point of marches. It has organized rallies, marches and regional general strikes in various governorates and is currently committees involved in the committees to safeguard the revolution.
The processes of popular self-organizing that are in progress, such as the Union of Unemployed Graduates or the committees to safeguard the revolution, to the extent that they are maintained and consolidated, will influence the future of the UGTT. Even taking into account the weight of a tradition of trade-union unity in the UGTT, in terms of democratic freedoms, sooner or later the impossibility bureaucratic unionism controlled by the state and autonomous, militant trade unionism will manifest itself.
However, the failure to legalize the union meant a cessation of its activities, and it focused almost exclusively on the celebration each year of a summer school for union training through the Association Club Mohamed Ali de la Culture Ouvriere (Mohamed Ali Club Association for Working-Class Culture, the name Mohamed Ali being a reference to the founder of the original CGTT).
On 1st February 2011, the CGTT was finally legalized and began organizing. However, it is still developing a clear union line and, more worryingly, its seems to be somewhat aloof and uninvolved in the current revolutionary process. From 3rd to 5th December, it is due to hold its first congress, where the line will be established together with its trade-union practice.
The former secretary general of the UGTT, Ismail Sahbani, has also created a third union, the Union of Tunisian Workers (UTT) as a bureaucratic apparatus more for the sake of competition within a possible framework of purely formal democracy.
If the Tunisian revolutionary process continues to progress, Tunisian workers will know the best way to organize themselves. If it retreats or comes to a halt, the various union bureaucracies will continue to play their role in order to avoid any autonomous self-organization by Tunisian workers.
Mouatamid
North Africa Working Group of the CGT International Secretariat
14 April 2011
Translation by FdCA International Relations Office
Originally published in Castilian on 14 April 2011. Original with photos: